Senate, House take up JPMorgan

Both sides of the Hill were talking JPMorgan Chase Wednesday, as Senate Democrats pressed FBI Director Robert Mueller for action on its investigation and House Republicans vowed the incident would not deter their efforts to overhaul financial regulations.

Muller confirmed that an investigation was underway in Senate testimony, prompting Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) to urge him to move “as promptly and expeditiously and aggressively as possible” in the investigation of the trading practices that resulted in a $2 billion loss.

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“I think that the American public really has lost faith in many other enforcement agencies, partly because of the delay and lack of results, and I think the FBI’s involvement is [a] very constructive and important presence in this area,” Blumenthal said during a hearing of the Senate Judiciary panel.

Blumenthal pressed Mueller for details on the scope, timing and focus of the bureau’s inquiry, but the director limited his response to saying that the investigation was in its preliminary stages.

Meanwhile, House Financial Services Chairman Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) used a hearing with federal regulators to press the idea that the JPMorgan incident hadn’t changed his opinion on regulating “too big to fail” financial institutions.

“Because of the JPMorgan Chase situation, we are again hearing from some of our colleagues that we need a law that can prevent a business from losing money or taking risk,” he said. “No law can do that.”

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) Tuesday postponed plans for a vote on a trio of bills aimed at rolling back parts of the 2010 Dodd-Frank law. Lucas said that the attention to the incident had driven the delay on the bills, which were scheduled for a committee vote Thursday.

House Democrats attempted to translate public concern into new momentum for their bid for tough financial regulations.

“Regardless of how we feel, the public is of the opinion that too big to fail is the right size to regulate,” Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) said during the Financial Services panel meeting.